I am a minister, photographer, retreat leader, author and Quaker -- albeit one who's not always good at being a good Quaker. I am the author of "Awaken Your Senses," "Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality," "Mind the Light: Learning to See with Spiritual Eyes" and "Sacred Compass: The Path of Spiritual Discernment" (foreword by Richard Foster).
This blog is a compendium of writing, photography, seriousness and silliness -- depending on my mood.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The first reviews of the new book are coming in -- and I couldn't be more pleased. Here are some excerpts!

Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God J. Brent Bill and Beth A. Booram. InterVarsity ... Modeling the best Sunday School teachers, Bill (Sacred Compass) and Booram (The Wide Open Spaces of God) get close to God via the five senses. The journey could so easily have been a skip instead of a sail; however, they truly manifest the book’s purpose: “to help more of you experience more of God.” The two ministers and workshop leaders accomplish this so well with natural sweetness from the inside, not with treacle glopped on top. Starting with the cover illustrations—a rose, a bird singing treble, threatening thorns, and a bitten pear, each image superimposing on another—the book divides naturally into five parts. ... Within each chapter, the authors alternate essays, their voices nearly indistinguishable except for Bill’s wittier bits; they touch on the personal, such as Booram’s sacred hospital smells. Each chapter includes spiritual exercises. The two cite the Bible’s raising up of the five senses, augmented with quotes from many sensate Christians. It adds up to a deeply pleasing book. -- Publishers Weekly.

Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God J. Brent Bill & Beth Booram ... I had a very early version of this and was so taken with it I told a few folks this summer that it will be one of the books of the year. ... [Beth and Brent] walk us through an array of wonder-full meditations and experiences that combine a sensuous engagement with creational givens---taste, hearing, touch, smell, seeing---and ways these activities can help us know God. There are two things going on here, it seems---helping us be attentive to the world around us, practicing a sensuous worldview and embodied sort of discipleship, and the ways in which this sort of attentiveness can facilitate a deeper relationship with God. Beautiful! I'll bet you know somebody for whom this will be a godsend. It'll wow 'em, for sure. And that cover---you have to see it "for real." Splendid. Kudos, again, to InterVarsity Press. -- Byron Bolger of Hearts and Minds Books.

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come yeJoyful and triumphant, a song she loves,And also the partridge in a pear treeAnd the golden rings and the turtle doves.In the dark streets, red lights and green and blueWhere the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,Enduring the cold and also the flu,Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.Not much triumph going on here—and yetThere is much we do not understand.And my hopes and fears are metIn this small singer holding onto my hand. Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark And are there angels hovering overhead? Hark.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Christmas was in the air and all was wellWith him, but for a few confusing flawsIn divers of God's images. BecauseA friend of his would neither buy nor sell,Was he to answer for the axe that fell?He pondered; and the reason for it was,Partly, a slowly freezing Santa ClausUpon the corner, with his beard and bell.

Acknowledging an improvident surprise,He magnified a fancy that he wishedThe friend whom he had wrecked were here again.Not sure of that, he found a compromise;And from the fulness of his heart he fishedA dime for Jesus who had died for men.

Monday, December 12, 2011

How does one birth peace. . .in a world that seems to prefer the profits of war?How can one birth hope. . .in a time when devastation is born of poverty and pandemic?How does one birth love. . .in a world whose heart is captive to fear?How can one birth joy. . .How can one birth joy?The plastic manger scene on the front lawnjust doesn't do it!Birthing is so much more!It is, and requires. . .radical intimacy,prolonged patience,the coming together of pain and ecstasy,the joining of our deepest hopes and fears.Face it,birthing is a messy business.And yet this process occurs every moment of our lives:as our bodies birth cell upon cell,as our minds birth ideas and dreams into the world,as our spirits birth. . .in the midst of labor and pain. . .as our spirits birth.. JOY!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

And God held in his handA small globe. Look he said.The son looked. Far off,As through water, he sawA scorched land of fierceColour. The light burnedThere; crusted buildingsCast their shadows: a brightSerpent, A riverUncoiled itself, radiantWith slime.On a bareHill a bare tree saddenedThe sky. many PeopleHeld out their thin armsTo it, as though waitingFor a vanished AprilTo return to its crossedBoughs. The son watchedThem. Let me go there, he said.-- R. S. Thomas

Friday, December 09, 2011

The candid freezing season again:Candle and cracker, needles of fir and frost;Carols that through the night air pass, piercingThe glassy husk of heart and heaven;Children's faces white in the pane, bright in the tree-light.And the waiting season again,That begs a crust and suffers joy vicariously:In bodily starvation now, in the spirit's exile always.O might the hilarious reign of love begin, let inLike carols from the coldThe lost who crowd the pane, numb outcasts into welcome.

One leaf left on a branchand not a sound of sadnessor despair. One leaf lefton a branch and no unhappiness.One leaf left all by itselfin the air and it does not speakof loneliness or death.One leaf and it spends itselfin swaying mildly in the breeze.

Thursday, December 01, 2011

No one can celebratea genuine Christmaswithout being truly poor.The self-sufficient, the proud,those who, because they haveeverything, look down on others,those who have no needeven of God- for them therewill be no Christmas.Only the poor, the hungry,those who need someoneto come on their behalf,will have that someone.That someone is God.Emmanuel. God-with-us.Without poverty of spiritthere can be no abundance of God.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends...with hearts...and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

******

Let us all give thanks, this holiday time, for friends no matter their type and God’s graciousness in giving them to us. People who are made in God’s own image, come to bless us. I am grateful for you!

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

When people have learned to de-sanctify each other, to treat each other as means to our own ends, to not feel the pain of those who are suffering, we end up creating a world in which...terrible acts of violence become more common. This is a world out of touch with itself, filled with people who have forgotten how to recognize and respond to the sacred in each other because we are so used to looking at others from the standpoint of what they can do for us, how we can use them toward our own ends.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,not Vermonters,And rejoice that I do not write,Rhyming poems like JGW -- Moll Pitcher, Barbara Fritchie, Maud Muller, bah...The saddest words of tongue or pen are not "It might of been" but are"It not ought to have been" but Whittier penned it anyway.

I loafe and invite my poems,I lean and loafe and brew my soma, but not for some churchly-hymn.

My poems, every poem of my poems, form'd from this soil, this air,Not some rhyming dictionary or nights spent playing Scrabble,

Creeds and rules of poetry I hold in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but should be quickly forgotten,I freeform my lines, no slave to format, I permit myself to speak at every hazard,Poetry without royalty check (unlike that other Quakerly poet), filled with original energy and my own self!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

After looking at singular things for a few days, I decided I would try to be attentive to "two"s -- and started on Twos-day (okay, bad puns are singular). I thought that being attentive to twos might be a bit more difficult. After all, there are many ones -- but how many twos are there?

As I brushed my hair (yes, I have some hair that still needs tending) in front of Nancy's dresser, I looked down and noticed our senior pictures sitting on her desk. No, not senior as in the age we are now, but senior as in seniors in high school. Two very earnest looking teenagers looked back at me from their formal professional black and white portraits. I said a prayer for those teens as I thought of how their lives were turning out to be far different (speaking for myself at least) than they imagined they would as seventeen year olds. I wished God's blessings for and on them.

As I moved to my chest of drawers to pick up my wallet, keys, and superfluous comb, I saw another set of senior pictures -- those of my sons Ben and Tim. I see those pictures (and another just behind them of the boys as very young boys) every day. But today I saw them afresh and as a possibility for the primary speech of prayer. As I reflected on their lives (Ben as business man, husband and father in Japan and Tim as good, kind Hoosier fellow), I prayed silently -- God knows the words I would speak could I really name the longings of my heart for these young men.

Spotting -- and praying for -- twos has been a bit easier than I thought. Two women just jogged by my office window. Two strangers that I was able to bless with a little prayer, though they, I am sure, will never know that they were being prayed for. Nor do they need to.

The prayers and attentiveness benefit me (singular) as much as them (twos), I am sure. The act of being attentive throughout the day is opening me to a richer prayer life than my usual "Thank you" or "Help me" or other simple prayers. It also feels more "me" than when I try to pray the hours (which is not my tradition) or try some other prayer practices that just don't quite fit the Bill (so to speak).

Monday, September 12, 2011

As many Friends, good and Bad, know, I (Brent Bill) have thinking about ways to revitalize Quaker life (not the magazine!) in the 21st century. Thus I've offered my "Modest Proposal" series (visit it here or download a pdf of it here).

But, of course, those writings are very deep and thoughtful and practical. Not much fun, I guess. Association of Bad Friends co-clerk Jacob Stone and I (with help from our Bad spouses) have come up with some other ideas in the past -- such as the inclusion of the Quaker Whoopee Cushion as a way to enliven Meeting and perhaps attract a more fun-loving bunch of Seekers.

Whilst those earlier ideas were great, the newest one from the Research and Development Sub-committee of the Advancement and Outreach Committee of the International Association of Bad Friends for Meeting Expansion and World Domination (Corporate motto: "We see a great people to be snookered") is simply stupendous.

We call it "Stay for Pay."

Simply put, Quaker meetings will begin paying people to attend Meeting for Worship.

Brilliant, isn't it?

Instead of taking an offering during or after worship, local meetings will pass out cash to attendees. Below is the proposed payment schedule:

Action

Payment

Attend Meeting for Worship (entire service)

$10

Give good vocal ministry (5-7 on clerks’ scale)

$5

Give great vocal ministry (8-10 on clerks’ scale)

$7.50

Give outstanding vocal ministry (leaving people crying, laughing, ready to march on DC, etc – without mentioning anything about God or Jesus or John Woolman)*

*unprogrammed meetings only

$10

Give outstanding vocal ministry (leaving people crying, laughing, ready to go door to door on evangelization campaign, etc – without mentioning anything about how God or Jesus is your best Friend and made you rich)*

*programmed meetings only

$10

Vocal ministry (other than the outstanding category, which has obvious criteria) would be rated Olympic style, with three or four clerks holding up signs with their scores for the message.

It's a win/win situation. Meetinghouses will be packed and a family of four will walk away with enough money to go do something enjoyable on Firstday afternoon! Who could ask for more?

And the best part -- it's not going to cost any money! That's right. Every Friends meeting seems to be sitting on some stash of endowment cash that they can't spend. Here's an opportunity to put the proceeds that have been piling up for the past one hundred years in the Phoebe Ann Mosley Memorial Straight Shooters and Outreach to Indigent Orphans of the Spanish American War Fund to work. The legal team of Stone, Bill, Stone, Stone, Stone M O'Gwynn will be glad to help with the details of modifying the conditions of the endowment.

For more information on this amazing program and how your meeting can franchise this opportunity for its use, contact us at 1-666-BAD-QUAK.

Why, who makes much of a miracle?As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,Or stand under trees in the woods,Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at nightwith any one I love,Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,Or animals feeding in the fields,Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quietand bright,Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.To me the sea is a continual miracle,The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--theships with men in them,What stranger miracles are there?

*********Thanks to Jacob Stone (Walt Whitman scholar and aficionado extraordinaire) for sending this to me.

About Me

I'm a Quaker who's just not very good at being a good Quaker -- I'm not always who aren't always peaceable, humble, kind, loving, truthful like someone who is a Friend should be. I'm also an author, minister, retreat leader, and photographer and I live in rural Indiana.